Tuesday

Wiesner, D. (1991). Tuesday. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

Read on June 6, 2012. Winner of the 1992 Caldecott Award.

Everyone has heard of the saying, “when pigs fly,” but what kind of crazy things happen when frogs literally fly? Tuesday is a magical tale of frogs who fly on their enchanted lilly pads when the clock strikes nine. Some frogs are out for fun, like late night television, while others are out for revenge. When morning arrives, all the frogs drop from the sky and return to their pond. This book leaves the reader thinking about what kind of magical things could happen when Wednesday rolls around?

I chose this fantasy/fantastic story because it is one of my favorite mentor texts in the classroom. Even though it is a mostly wordless picture book, it lends itself to a lot different activities. Out of all of the strategies that the Mosaic of Thought (Keene and Zimmerman) gives, I find that this book is best used for inferring. Students have to rely on the picture clues like the dog running away from the frogs, to infer that the dog is probably running away because he is scared of the flying frogs. Students may also enjoy discussing with each other (Langer-sociocognitive theory) what would happen in a book titled Wednesday. They would use the very important clue at the end of the story of a pig's shadow floating outside of a barn to help them work together and formulate a story.

The pictures in a picture truly make or break the book. The pictures in this book are beyond extraordinary. The detail given to each frog, to make him look different than the others, is a detail that does not go unnoticed to the reader. This book defines surrealism style pictures to a tee.